


Maybe

by Servena



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hope, Protective Siblings, Reunions, Riverrun, Sibling Bonding, Sword Fighting, Training, post-reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 12:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12704889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servena/pseuds/Servena
Summary: “She is just a little girl, Robb! She has come home and she needs to rest and she is safe here. There is no need to put her through any more of that!”“The world doesn’t care that she is a little girl!”





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sommerchallenge 2017.

Catelyn watched as Robb moved to strike and Arya ducked away under the oncoming sword. They were just training swords made out of wood, but she flinched all the same. The night before, when she had braided Arya’s hair – it was hardly long enough yet, but she had yearned to do it since the day Arya had returned, with dirty hair and the sword Jon Snow had given her and so very _alive_ – she had seen the bruises marring her pale skin on her arms and legs.

“It’s nothing”, Arya had said when she had remarked on them, although they had to hurt. That night she had stayed awake long after the sun had gone down and stared at the wooden ceiling of her chamber, thinking about the things Arya must have seen, against which bruises mattered none at all anymore.

The first time she had found them training together in the Godswood, she had forbidden it. But Robb would have none of that, and they had a terrible fight.

“She is just a little girl, Robb!” she had said, begging him to understand. “She has come home and she needs to rest and she is safe here. There is no need to put her through any more of that!”

“The world doesn’t care that she is a little girl!” Robb had said to that. “I want her to be able to defend herself if she has to.”

“But she won’t have to, she’ll be safe.”

“You don’t know that!” he had yelled. And then he had repeated, calm and determined: “You don’t know that.”

The next time they had gone to the Godswood together, she hadn’t said anything.

The swords met again with a hard sound and Robb sent Arya’s flying back between the trees.

“Again”, he said.

She nodded and went to retrieve it without complaint. Her face was red and she was panting, but she was grinning, a fierce, determined grin that Catelyn had come to know over the last few weeks. My little girl, such a fierce warrior, she thought. It made her heart ache deep in her chest.

She watched as they started over again. Robb took his steps calmly and attacked with sure movements while Arya danced back and forth on her feet and attacked quickly, lunging forward like a snake.

“Good. What you lack in strength, you make up with speed.”

“I _know_ ”, Arya said.

He smiled. It made his face look younger, like the boy he had once been before he had gone to war to save a father he couldn’t save. Her son, her firstborn, maybe the only son she had left.

She knew that he believed that Bran and Rickon weren’t dead. Arya shared that belief with a fiery conviction and between the both of them, they had managed to rekindle a glimmer of hope in herself. Arya had come back to her when she had believed her to be lost, maybe the gods would have mercy on her once again? She had even brought Nymeria with her, who had thrived in the wild and grown even bigger than Grey Wind. Maybe the old gods were with her children like Jon Snow said. Maybe they would all be together again one day.

Arya’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. “Do you give up?” The tip of her wooden sword rested against her brother’s throat.

He let go of his sword and raised up his hands. “Alright, alright. Well done.”

She let the sword sink down to the ground. “I told you so.”

They laughed, and Catelyn turned around to leave, holding on to her children’s laughter and that tiny glimmer of _Maybe_.


End file.
